Occupy protesters these days are fond of chanting “This is what democracy looks like!” — a slogan they borrowed from other far-left protests in recent decades.
But at Occupy Los Angeles, fellow photojournalist Ringo captured what democracy really looks like in the OWS milieu. Yeah, Occupations have their “General Assemblies” and their up-twinkles and so forth, but that only works when everyone is already in essential agreement after the real dissenters have already been expelled, leaving the “democratic assembly” to at most bicker over minor details.
But what happens when there is deep fundamental disagreement on some point — in this case the key point of who is allowed permission to speak in the first place? Do the Occupiers have their own version of the First Amendment, or perhaps something even better?
In a word: No.
The deeply disturbing underbelly of Occupy groupthink was captured by Ringo a couple weeks ago at the Occupy LA encampment when two disgruntled protesters wanted to have their say on the camp’s “open mike” stage which is supposedly free for anyone to use. According to the Occupy philosophy, this system is even better than the First Amendment, because with an open mike, every single person has an equal voice (not just those who control the broadcast media).
Except what happens when one of your own starts saying things that the other Occupiers don’t want to hear?
Below you will find a series of videos taken from Ringo’s report Infighting, Pot Smoke & Chemtrails – One Hundred Minutes at Occupy L.A. (In this post we’ll be focusing on the “infighting” part; read Ringo’s full report for more on the Chemtrails lunacy and open drug use.)
Captions (in quotation marks) are by Ringo, with a few clarifications by me:
“No sooner did I turn away from this scene before I heard another argument breaking out – this one was on the stage, and much of it was being amplified across the park.
“Seems a man who wanted to make a short speech walked up on the empty stage with his own portable P.A. system, but as soon as he began to speak he was quickly surrounded by fellow occupiers who were intent on preventing him. They repeatedly unplugged his microphone. In the picture below you can see the man who wanted to speak in the brown sweater being faced off by a very angry Aztlan-warrior-hippie in a yellow shirt.
“Here is video of how it looked as I approached”:
This is the essence of what the future would look like in an Occupied nation, boiled down into a two-minute video: When there are no laws and/or no one to enforce those laws, then the bullies will control society.
“A guy in a striped tank-top and flat cap came over to cool things down. He kept saying, ‘Listen to me, I’m from San Francisco, I know how this works, I’m from San Francisco, listen to me.’ …Nobody seemed to care that he was from San Francisco. The shouting and shoving continued.
“Evidently a moment of silence had been scheduled for noon – just about the exact moment the ruckus began. The ‘moment of silence’ was to be followed by a one hour yoga session on the main stage, accompanied by Indian chanting – the purpose of which was to exorcise the bad energy and heal the rifts between the various factions. As the yogis took the stage, the imbroglio continued. As you can hear in the next video, the man who was being prevented from speaking starts calling for the police to help him…but there were no police around”:
As you watch the video above, keep in mind that if the Occupiers actually took over the country, this is how our nation’s new parliament or congress would act.
“What I gathered from talking to a few people who were standing nearby is that libertarians, and others, including some of the anarchists and hippies and conspiracy theorists, were angry that the use of the main stage was being controlled by Communists and Left-wing radicals. They claimed that opposing viewpoints were not allowed. One guy with a black bandana tied around his neck told me that ‘organized groups’ were trying to take over OLA. He said this movement should be leaderless. Another girl who looked to me like a hippie, countered that ‘somebody has to be in charge.’
“Meanwhile, as flaring tempers and shouting continued on one side of the stage, a woman sat down on the other side with a Hare Krishna-style pump organ and began chanting over the public address system – the system controlled by the ‘Commies and Leftists.’ This all made for a very surreal scene”:
Friday, November 25, 2011
This Is What Democracy Looks Like…in Hell
Via Moonbattery
PJ Tatler
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Some take the position that "Well atleast OWS will show up and face the man."
ReplyDeleteThat is true. Although a stated purpose other than causing trouble for the sake of trouble might help the cause. Something akin to a cohesive message might work.
There has been alot of hay made of the Tea Party and inaction, could not agree more they have become impotent and status quo at best.
This rising tide of disgust with the current state of economic, political, social you name it we are not happy with it out cry is a good thing. These uprisings have to happen for fed to realize times up.
At this point it appears the inmates are running the asylum at occupy.
Sympathize with em if you want.
I'm done.
Mozart